CHAPTER TEN

Ten miles out from the nearest gas pump, a boy and his father lived to a company of themselves and their stock. The boy easily made friends--cows, chickens, deer brave enough to attempt the salt licks erected. His father could not be counted among the group, a recluse even from his own son. A spell ago, the boy’s mother left the farm intending to return--one explanation the boy consoled himself with. His thoughts oft wandered towards this figure present in formative but forgotten years past. He could not remember her face, smell, warmth. And his father refused the subject. All this he contemplated, chicken eggs fondled out from straw and into a basket the same.

The boy’s father stumbled into the barn, an ashy scent in his wake. He took a drag and pat the cows’ rumps shambled past. When he opened his mouth to speak, the boy understood his father’s other vice--the sun’s position through cracks in wood confirming the time, his father never late.

“How much.”

The boy answered to the count of twelve.

“Mm. Stick somma these hens in a crate, see if they straighten up.”

The boy pled otherwise. His father clicked his tongue and held the cigarette out as if to flick, but ultimately he decided against the move and replaced his oral fixation. Leaving wordlessly, the clouds hung behind him just moments more. The boy took a chicken into his hands and stroked the thing, the creature purring in appreciation. But the barn door swung open to their surprise, his father in for one last word.

“Boy, you ain’t that thing’s mother.”

His back against the slick shell wall, the dwarf allowed himself to slide further forward just narrowly avoiding a puncture from the beak of the newborn chick towering so high. He threw himself and traveled sickeningly across the thick liquid the two soaked in, bumping bald first into the other side of the egg. Sloshing around in the viscous mess, the dwarf hollered for help--for Waspig or anyone else. The wet bird, disturbed by this bearded screeching, lunged again nearly catching the dwarf’s arm. He yelled his creature’s name again as he slumped into gel and membrane.

The few strands of moonlight afforded to the inside of the egg from the dwarf’s initial puncturing found itself suddenly snuffed. The dwarf caught the unmistakable huffing of his stout steed. The chick operated unflinchingly in the darkness without remark or hesitation. The dwarf felt vibrations close in on him, gasped, then forced himself under the goo’s surface as the wind of the beast’s followup whipped his legs. He yelped as claws crashed down into his gut, blood drawn and mixed into the viscera. Above, the hogsect popped itself out from the ceiling, the wet bearded being below aware of its tiny wings buzzing up and away until they could be heard no longer. He knew himself abandoned then.

The dwarf dove to avoid another assault from the screeching creature ahead of him and spat up inadvertent samplings of the filth made floor. He yelled again for Waspig. He heard no one. Exercising his dwarfen lungs to their fullest capacity, the dwarf caught himself crying out for his mother. When she escaped his lips, his head spun and sent the dwarf down back to the goo. The overgrown fledgling prepared itself to seize its prey. The dwarf could do little but send tears into the disgusting liquid beneath him and his adversary; murderer. He thought of the further pain he’d soon endure; possible regeneration dulling none. The dwarf considered his own part in his death, the disturbing of a creature within its own home. He could not bring himself to hate the beast--only the bitter circumstances.

Above, the eggshell roof collapsed suddenly and entirely under the massive weight of Waspig, crushing the chicken entirely while sparing the drenched dwarf. He smiled weakly and laid for some time before willing himself up and forward. Staggering and slipping towards the crystal white reflecting the moon above, mounting, stumbling out from the egg and onto grass wet with dew, the dwarf flat on his face. Damp but undaunted, the dwarf laughed his lungs to exhaustion. After, he became very still and quiet. He thought of his mother again as his battleworn hands reached behind Waspig’s ears. Unwilling to stand, the dwarf continued rolling himself until a splash into the river followed his wake, Waspig put then to alert, the dwarf emerging and continuing his cheer in rambunctious ignorance. He washed the grime from his body, scrubbing his bare hands against the filth that had accumulated since his burial and becoming. The dwarf rinsed his dwarfen teeth and gums, grinding his thick fingers across both repeatedly. He whipped his beard up into his face and fell backwards. Allowing the water contact with his eyes, the dwarf gazed beneath the surface and caught the milky white and its speckled backdrop, branches many, dark clouds obscuring one another. He willed himself around to face the existence of strange shrimp-like felines that scattered about in the voluminous mist maintained across the riverbed. Illuminated rocks of gorgeous, unbelievable colors supported swift moving shadows below minnow-like beings in schools over. Bursting back through the surface and to his pet’s delight, the dwarf found himself unable to then ignore the thick rustling of the walls of trees above and the atmosphere of a night life dancing around him. His creature joined the cacophonies of sound rising into and throughout the air from littler beings sneaking past the river, up bark and both banks.

Returning to the shore with Waspig in tow, the dwarf cleaned his creature too of its worn glory, gently as his haired tips allowed. The two then waded out from the water and laid back across the ground, wet on wet. One shook its fur; the other his beard. Together they drifted off to a sleep only the sun would interrupt.